


Refuge

by TheDragonPatronus



Category: Voltron Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Chyra, Everything is a mess, Grey, Other, Shiro has PTSD, Slow Updates, Violent, Voltron, gladiator, wolf - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-04-08 11:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14104839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonPatronus/pseuds/TheDragonPatronus
Summary: Takashi Shirogane promised himself after he escaped imprisonment that he would never let a Galra get anywhere near him ever again. But what else could he have done? Chyra almost drowned when she crash landed on the Paladin's temporary base planet, badly injured and piloting a strange grey vessel. What was he supposed to do?He couldn't just let her die.Chyra didn't belong anywhere. For a while, she was simply an orphan. Then she was an assassin, then an experiment. Eventually she became a traitor. She lost her family, and was cast adrift among the stars with only a damaged robotic wolf for company.And then she found the paladins.Then she found hope.





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally just a prologue

The passageways were dark, lit only by the purple glow of quintessence as it flowed through the bulkheads of the ship, its dim radiance allowing the five shadows to slip through the darkness unseen. 

A different thing could be said for the unnecessary amount of complaining going on, though. 

"I swear, if we get caught doing this, I'm never letting you borrow my cloaking device again." Quinn griped, his hushed whispers echoing off the cold metal walls. Chyra shushed him aggressively as she saw another group of sentries round the corner at the other end of the hallway. The four Galra cadets and the assassin pressed into the shadowy crevasses between hallways, clinging to the patches of darkness like living shadows. They held their breaths, not daring to even breathe in case the robots' audio sensors picked up on the sound. 

The sentries passed harmlessly by their hiding places. Chyra motioned for her friends to move forward, keeping her booted feet light on the metal ground. The others followed behind her and kept right on her tail as she crept through the ship. 

"I agree with Quinn. We shouldn't be doing this. Do you have any idea how much trouble we could get in?" Harlow whispered. Her bronze eyes glinted worriedly in the dim lighting. 

Chyra suddenly stood up straight, her shoulders rigid and face a forced mask of calmness. Why did they come if they were just going to complain? 

"Alright then. You can head back to the barracks, all alone, in a dark ship that's absolutely crawling with sentries, which-by the way- will let me go literally wherever I want in this entire ship, and wait there for me while I go and have an amazing adventure without you four." She said, falsely cheery. The others shared nervous glances, before looking back at Chyra with resignation. 

"Fine." Vrill agreed. "But Chyra, you'd better bail us out if we get caught. I refuse to clean out the garbage chutes again because you got us into trouble." 

Corinth chimed in as well. "Oh shut it, Vrill. Cleaning out garbage chutes may be miserable, but at least you don't have to polish armor and weapons until your arms fall off." 

"Both of you can stop talking. Mainly because we're going to get caught if you don't shut your traps, but also because you're complaints are invalid. At least you all don't get put in gladiator battles whenever you mess something up." Chyra growled, her golden eyes flashing dangerously. 

Overall, being Zarkon's favorite pet assassin had its perks. Chyra was basically treated like royalty, because all the guards knew she would kick their asses if they got in her way. She could basically do whatever or go wherever she wanted in the ship, except for certain "Top Secret" areas. The downside was that, if and when Chyra ever messed up on an assassination job or did something that Zarkon hadn't told her to do, she got sent into the gladiator ring to fight against the tougher prisoners and competitors so she could learn her lesson. She won nearly every time she fought in the ring because of her years of intensive combat training, but Chyra had taken quite a few thrashings as well. That would explain why she was so well muscled and had scars crisscrossing her body from countless battles. 

The others finally shut up.

Chyra rolled her eyes and continued down the hallway, heading straight towards a light shining from the end of the metal tunnel. The five rebellious Galra reached the end of the passage, and Chyra peeked around the corner. She spied two sentry robots stationed outside the massive metal doors to the hangar that the cadets were trying to access. The assassin slunk back into the shadows and told her friends the plan. 

"Okay, I'm going to get the metalheads to leave, and then you all sneak in right behind me. We'll go in, have a look at what I want to investigate, and be out before anyone knows that we were here. Got it?" 

Corinth rolled her eyes. "Just go already." She said with a smirk. She made shooing motions with her hands, and Chyra stuck her tongue out at Corinth teasingly. 

"You're both dumb." Vrill scowled. Chyra punched him on the arm before standing up straight, making the most of her slightly smaller than usual frame. She was short for a Galra, especially one that had won so many battles and defeated so many enemies. 

If anyone ever pointed out her height to her, Chyra would reply with a snarky, "I may be short, but I'll kick your ass all the way to the next star system." That usually ended in a fight of some sort, in which Chyra would then proceed to kick her challenger's ass all the way to the next star system.  

The assassin stalked out into the hallway, alerting the sentries of her presence with a slight clearing of her throat. The robot soldiers leapt to attention, brandishing their blasters for a moment before their facial recognition software kicked in and they saw that it was Chyra that had approached them. They lowered their weapons, but only slightly. 

"Ahem. Good evening, sentries." Chyra said, trying to make her height measure up to that of the robotic guards. It didn't work. Those damn robots were tall. 

The sentry on the left said in a very unexpected, very much alive male voice, "You have no authorization to be at this specific hangar, Ma'am. I must ask you to please leave this restricted area immediately." 

Oh, so these sentries were actually people, not robots programmed to guard the hanger. This, Chyra could work with. 

Chyra's casual demeanor immediately dropped, and she instead opted for an authoritative approach. 

"Lord Zarkon has assigned me and four outstanding cadets-" Chyra's eye twitched as she heard a muffled snicker from around the corner, "from the training academy to guard this hangar for the remainder of the night. You two are dismissed." She commanded, trying to use her elevated position as Zarkon's personal assassin to her advantage. 

It didn't work. 

The guard on the right snorted, and adjusted his blaster in his hand. "Sorry, miss. But we were instructed not to leave our posts. I'm sure you understand, being Emperor Zarkon's personal assassin and all. You know, duties and such." Chyra resisted the extremely strong urge to roll her eyes. The guard's voice was forcibly deepened, and disgustingly sultry. This dude was laying it on thick. 

She could work with this. 

Chyra's posture and demeanor changed incredibly in the span of about two seconds, going from tough and commanding to... she wasn't even sure what to call it without it making her seem absolutely disgusting. 

She was being... seductive?

It wasn't a tactic that she liked to use for assassinations. In fact, she downright hated it. But she had gotten plenty of practice in her many years of murder, and Chyra knew exactly how to get the guards away from the door. 

She forced a slow smile onto her lips, cocking one hip out and reaching up to tuck a strand of wavy violet hair behind her pointed ear. She looked up at the guards through her eyelashes, no longer standing tall and seeming commanding, but making herself look meeker and more easily overpowered. She pulled her shoulder blades together and puffed her chest outwards to accentuate her rather small chest. 

Chyra was a reasonably good-looking Galra. Despite her diminutive stature and lack of extremely noticeable curves, she could be described as attractive. She was slim and lithe, and was praised for her ferocity and skill in battle, all qualities that were desired among female Galra. She had rank on her side, being Zarkon's personal assassin, and was basically off limits because of this fact. 

That's why she was disgusted by how these Galra looked at her. 

She could practically feel the guards' eyes on her, roving over her body from beneath their helmets. She wanted to stab them, cut out their eyes and their hearts and many other unsavory parts of them for looking at her like that. She wasn't theirs. She wasn't some prize. 

Chyra forced down her feelings of revulsion and twirled a lock of her dark purple hair around her finger. "Alright, you caught me red handed." She said, making her voice smooth and soft. 

"Truth is, I'm bored. And I have nothing to do tonight." 

The guard's leaned forwards unconsciously, aware of every move that Chyra made, but not paying any attention to the barely concealed disgust roiling in her eyes. 

"Maybe... I don't know, maybe you boys could help me with that." 

There it was. That unmistakable shiver of excitement that Chyra saw run down a man's spine every time she used this tactic. She had them wrapped around her finger, and there was no doubt in her mind that she would exploit that advantage until she got those two guards away from that hangar door. 

The guard on the left chuckled, his voice deeper than it was originally as well. "Mm, maybe we can." He lowered his blaster, clicking it into place on his right hip. His partner did the same. 

Perfect. 

Chyra turned on her heel, purposely making her rather narrow hips sway more dramatically than usual. She looked back over her shoulder with a flirtatious smile. She said, "Alright then," and walked off with the guards hot on her heels. 

Vrill wrinkled his nose in disgust. The others were speechless. What the quiznak just happened?

"She did not just do that." Harlow denied, shaking her head aggressively as if to wriggle unpleasant thoughts out of her mind. Harlow was the youngest of the group, at only fifteen deca-phoebes of age, and was probably the most innocent fighter pilot any of the others had ever met. Quinn the engineer was next at sixteen, Corinth was seventeen, Vrill was twenty, and Chyra was twenty three deca-phoebes old, and the self proclaimed mom of the group. 

And she had just stalked off down the hallway with two totally awestruck men in her wake. 

"I'm sure she just, um... I don't know what she's doing." Quinn said, his catlike ears drooping in confusion. 

Corinth snorted angrily, her fiery temper rising up once again. "Well Chyra probably just got us caught. What she failed to realize is that we can't get into the hangar without her handprint to unlock the door, because as you all know, only Zarkon's favorite people can get into restricted areas. And lucky for us, she's off with a couple of men doing who knows what." 

Vrill grimaced. Basically everyone grimaced. The situation was unbearably uncomfortable, especially since it had been Chyra's idea to sneak out in the first place. There wasn't much that could be said between the four close friends, just an awkward silence that could be cut with a knife. 

That's when Vrill heard footsteps pounding down the hallway ahead. 

For a second, he panicked, thinking that a couple of guards had found out that they were out of bed at this ungodly hour, and was coming to catch them and deal out punishments for their recurring disobedience. But is was only one pair of feet that were galloping down the hallway, one person that was laughing quietly as she sprinted down the hall towards the forbidden hangar. 

The others stood up from their crouched positions as Chyra skidded around the corner, her muscled legs working overtime to allow her to sprint at high speeds and stop on a dime. She was disheveled, hopefully from running, and not... whatever mess she had gotten herself into. She was smiling madly, however, and that helped put Vrill's mind at ease. Chyra had always complained profusely whenever she came back from an assassination when she had needed to use the infamous 'seduction tactic' on her target. Vrill hadn't been able to identify it because he had never seen her do it in person. 

"Why aren't you four already in the hangar? You're going to get caught out here in the open like this!" She said sternly. 

Corinth scowled and spoke up, "You're our ticket into that hangar with your handprint. So you shouldn't be complaining, especially after you abandoned us over here."

Chyra snorted. "Cory, I literally walked down the hall, smashed their helmets together, and shoved those guys in a storage closet. I was gone for like two ticks! What could have possibly happened in two ticks?" The assassin crossed her arms and stuck a hip out, not seductively like last time thank the stars, but in a sassy teenager kind of way. Chyra may have been an adult, but that didn't mean she was mature. Corinth rolled her eyes, and Chyra 'harrumphed' triumphantly before turning to place her hand on the activation pad for the door. 

The double doors leading from the hallway to the hangar swung open with a whoosh of air. The motley family hurried through the doors, and then closed and locked them from the inside. 

A rush of thrilling adrenaline surged up Chyra's spine at the sight of what stood before them. 

Five massive machines crouched in the semi-darkness, their silhouettes looming far above the five Galra below them. Their shadowed shapes were gigantic, brushing against the ceiling with their bulk. They couldn't be seen very clearly in the dark lighting, but the five young adults were awestruck as it was. Quinn groped along the wall for a light switch, and when he found it, he pulled the lever upwards to light up the hangar. 

They were fantastic. The metal shapes of five massive canines sat in a row, their dark colored flanks shining in the florescent lighting. There was a collective gasp from the five Galra on the floor as they stared up in awe at the mechanical beasts. Each machine had a particle barrier surrounding it, and every one was a different color. They ranged from deep burgundy and dark forest green for the smallest, to dark blue and burnt orange for the larger two, and then to a dark indigo shield for the largest machine at the back. 

"What are these things?" Vrill asked. Chyra had no clue, but she was saved from admitting this when Quinn spoke. 

"They seem to be giant mechanical versions of Altean Verinsk Wolves." He mused. The others looked at the tech-wizard questioningly. 

"I'm serious. I've done research on Altea, hoping to find information on how they made their spaceports to have their own atmosphere. I figured that if we could make atmospheric generators that attach to space suits or ships, we could-"

"Get on with it!" Corinth interrupted impatiently.

Quinn scowled at Corinth for interrupting his rant. He shook his head and continued, "point is: I came across some references to Verinsk wolves in my research, and wanted to investigate. So I did, and there were all these legends about these big mythical wolves that were stronger, faster, and smarter than the other breeds of Altean wolves. But this, this was never mentioned." 

Chyra looked to Vrill, his mouth hanging open in amazement as he beheld the massive wolf-shaped vessels. She nudged his arm with a smirk. "Go ahead. Investigate. It's why we're here." And then she darted off towards the vessels. She weaved between the shields surrounding the wolves, a childish joy coming to her as she marveled at the size of the robots. There were three variations of size; the smallest hovering about at the big level, just a small bit bigger than the automated fighting drones that the empire employed during firefights, the next biggest had moved on to massive, and the largest was probably at a holy quiznak that's absolutely huge size.

The others dispersed, too, and started to investigate the other wolf mechs. Chyra slowed to a walk, her face screwing up as if tasting something sour as she felt a strange pulling sensation in her chest. Chyra looked up. 

In front of her stood the largest and darkest colored wolf mech. Its grey metallic hide and unlit eyes seemed to glint in the harsh white lighting. Chyra felt a pull in her chest again. It was as if she was being called. To where, she didn't know, but something was pulling her, controlling her actions, moving her like a puppet on strings to reach out and touch the purple particle barrier that surrounded the massive mechanical wolf. Where her hand touched the purple shield, the barrier shimmered like a mirage and disappeared, eventually the entire shield retracted and vanished behind the wolf's pointed metal ears. 

The pull in Chyra's heart grew stronger, tugging her towards the giant metal wolf. Her heart pounded in her ears, her pulse rapid and quick. She didn't know what was happening, she hardly ever felt like this. She only ever felt this way when she got an assassination contract, and she was given the opportunity to leave the mothership and venture out into the stars and escape Zarkon's lair.

On the other end of the hangar, the other four cadets had approached wolves of their own, placing their palms on the particle barriers around the mechs. In no time at all, each of the five Galra had dismantled the particle barriers surrounding the wolves and stood in front of a mech. Quinn had taken a liking to the small forest green one, while Vrill stood in front of the streamlined maroon wolf. Harlow had stopped in front of the dark blue wolf, and was bouncing excitedly on her toes as the shield around it disappeared. Corinth had settled on the burnt orange colored wolf with heavy armor and artillery. 

The pull was almost painful now.

Chyra stepped forward, and a loud metallic growl sounded from the immense mechanical wolf before her. 

The spell broke. 

The assassin stepped back, her eyes widening in shock as the wolf's eyes lit up bright blue. She gasped, watching in stunned fascination as the wolf's massive head moved downwards, its enormous eyes flashing strangely. Chyra swore she could have seen emotion in those eyes, deeply hidden beneath the wolf's metal exterior. Chyra froze in fear. 

Oh quiznak. 

The massive mechanical wolf opened its jaws, displaying silvery metal teeth that were easily longer than Chyra was tall. Her brain screamed for her legs to move, to run and hide and avoid being eaten by this mechanical monster, but her muscles didn't respond. They were held in place by that strange magnetic pull that had returned more forcefully than ever. The assassin shut her eyes tightly, waiting for her body to be crushed between those giant metal jaws. She waited for the clash of metal around her body, waited for the impact that would crush her, because her stupid legs wouldn't work. 

The impact never came.

Seconds ticked by, and eventually Chyra cracked open a gleaming gold eye. The wolf hadn't moved, and the pulling sensation in her chest hadn't lessened or increased whatsoever. She glanced at the others, seeing that all the other wolves had their shields down, and a couple, like Quinn's green and Harlow's blue, had their heads down, resting their chins on the ground. The yellow wolf that Corinth had approached was in the process of lowering its bulky head, but Vrill's red wasn't having it. The shield had gone down, but its head was still tilted proudly upwards, and its eyes weren't alight like the rest of the machines. The thing was unmoving and stoic in every way. 

Chyra turned back to the dark grey wolf, and reached out to touch its massive metal face. As she ran her fingers lightly, ever so cautiously along the rim of its jaw, a small jolt, like a minute shock of electricity, flew up Chyra's spine. She felt something, an odd sensation nagging in the back of her mind, like that feeling one might get when they're forgetting something but can't remember what it is. 

The feeling quickly graduated from being mildly annoying to downright stifling in a matter of moments. It was as if another consciousness was engulfing Chyra's, making her feel small and stupid compared to its vast and intelligent presence. Its thoughts pressed against her from all sides like a storm surrounding an island in a vast and turbulent ocean. The workings of the mind were foreign yet familiar, in a language that Chyra didn't know, yet still understandable. There was curiosity, and apprehension, with a hint of annoyance and impatience thrown in, all directed at Chyra from what she could only assume was the supposedly sentient metal wolf. 

Oh my stars. 

It was the wolf. It was alive somehow, despite its body being made of metal. It was talking to her, in a way that Chyra could barely decipher. She tried to block out the wolf's thoughts and emotions, but it was like a tidal wave washing over her. She was swept up in the vast alien mind and cast adrift, her only means of survival was to do what the gigantic wolf requested of her. 

It seemed to want her to climb into its mouth.

Chyra stood there stroking the wolf's jaw, debating whether to put herself at risk like this. She was literally walking right into the jaws of a giant metal monster. 

But it didn't seem to want to hurt her, its mind was peaceful and relaxed, not docile per say- the consciousness was wild and untamed- but it was definitely not malevolent or vicious in any way. 

Why not, Chyra decided. Better than sitting in her room all night. 

She climbed into the wolf's mouth. 

The inside of its mouth was roomy; Chyra could stand inside of it, with her arms fully extended, and still not reach from one side to the other. Purple lights lit up the interior of its jaws, but it wasn't the garish, pinkish-purple color that the Galra were known for, it was more like a soothing violet. The dark metal reflected fractured images of Chyra across its surfaces, blurring her sharp features and making her grayish purple skin appear darker and shadowy.

Chyra peered into the wolf's cavernous throat, realizing that there was a lift that led upwards into the wolf's head. The alien mind pressed against her own, urging Chyra to approach the tube. She touched the smooth metal walls of the lift, its shiny surface was slick and warm, as if the wolf breathed through its mouth, and its breaths passed by this tube with every exhale. Although that thought was far from comforting, Chyra stepped inside the lift. 

The circular metal floor rose upwards. The ride was short but claustrophobic, and Chyra couldn't wait to get out of it. 

She almost passed out from excitement when she emerged. 

She was in a cockpit. This thing was a spaceship. And it had the absolute coolest cockpit in the history of cockpits. 

Chyra had piloted ships before, she had been trained to do so and flew herself to and from all of her missions. She had been in every kind of ship, from low-quality escape pods to high tech speeders of every design, but this... this was phenomenal. It was the most high tech, advanced, and downright beautiful piece of machinery she had ever beheld. Unlit holographic screens surrounded a pilot's chair on three sides, there was an over abundance of purple light, and it was basically heaven. There were doodads and thingamabobs that controlled every function imaginable, monitored every status, measured distance and trajectory and measured the aim for lasers and blasters that were apparently equipped to the alien battleship. Chyra practically started drooling at all the fantastic technology. 

She ran her hands along the soft fabric of the pilot's chair, before sitting down cautiously. The wolf's presence in her mind had lessened, but it was still there, just hovering quietly in the back of her mind. A strange feeling emanated from it, an odd sensation of acceptance and welcome that Chyra was pretty unaccustomed to.

She touched the control joysticks carefully, her fingers barely skimming their cold metal surface. She took them gently in her hands, holding them with a cautiousness that was unusual for the assassin. She cradled them in her palms like they were jewels, precious and delicate. A pang of annoyance came from the presence that pressed against her mind, as if it was speaking to her. I'm not some pup that needs to be coddled, she seemed to say- the wolf's consciousness was decidedly female- do not make me eject you from this cockpit. 

Chyra gripped the controls tighter. The wolf's jaws closed and it lifted its head, the violet screens coming to life inside the control room. Chyra laughed in exhilaration as the massive vessel rose to its feet, gigantic metal claws scraping the floor of the hangar. Chyra could see her friends all staring up at the dark grey wolf in awe, it's massive height towering over the other machines. By now, the wolves and their pilots had all gotten acquainted, and Corinth, Harlow, and Quinn had all climbed inside the jaws of their respective wolf mechs. The burgundy wolf had finally lowered its head, and Vrill had been standing next to its open jaws for a long time, considering whether to get in or not. At the sight of Chyra in the massive lead wolf, Vrill clambered into the red wolf's mouth and entered the cockpit. 

A communication link crackled into existence, the excited voices of her friends flooded the cockpit. They were thrilled, and they had the same excitement in their voices that Chyra felt: that same rapid heart rate, heavy breathing, bouncing up and down kind of excitement that made her head spin and her heart pound out erratic rhythms. 

"This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" Harlow screeched. Chyra watched as the blue wolf stood and started wagging its tail, its azure eyes glowing brightly. 

"How is this possible? It's like this thing is reading my mind, I barely have to steer!" Quinn marveled. The forest green wolf was sitting in its haunches and looking back and forth, its ears twitching slightly. 

"Man, these things are huge! I wonder what kind of artillery they've got!" Chyra could practically see Corinth's massive grin as she spoke, her love of weapons and blowing things up taking over for a moment. 

"Easy now, Corinth. We're still in the hangar." Chyra chuckled over the com link. 

The grey wolf stood tall, its head raised proudly as it surveyed its surroundings. Chyra watched as the dark red wolf rose to its paws and seemed to stretch as if it was getting a cramp out of its front legs. Chyra tinkered with the controls, making her wolf take a few steps and turn around to face the door of the hangar. The main controls were pretty easy, just use the two joysticks to move forward or backwards, and to turn left or right. Flicking her wrists upwards with her thumbs pointing towards the ceiling would increase height, and turning her thumbs down towards the floor would lower the spacecraft, which was undoubtedly meant for travel in the air or in space. Chyra got the hang of the basic movements quickly, but there were still countless switches and toggles and buttons and keypads that did who knows what. 

"Hey, Quinn? Can you open the bay doors?" Chyra asked, overtaken by a sudden urge to escape the cramped hangar. It was a similar feeling to the one that had led her into the cockpit of the massive mechanical wolf: a pull in her heart, a sudden longing for freedom and open space that was more intense than basically any emotion Chyra had felt before. Her desperate want for freedom combined with that of the grey wolf blended together to create a force that Chyra couldn't resist. 

She needed to fly. 

"What? Chy, no! We can't do that, they'll know we were out for sure!" Vrill reasoned. Always the voice of reason. Red hot anger blossomed in the assassin's chest, enhanced by the wolf's own frustration at being in the cramped space. Didn't they feel it, too? Didn't everyone else want to get out and run, to feel freedom for once in their lives?

Chyra opened her mouth to respond, but a monstrous metallic growl cut her off. Grey bared her great metal teeth and turned on her own towards the hangar doors leading to the rest of the ship. The screen next to the door showed an entire squadron of Galra soldiers, all fully armored and armed with blasters.  
One of them fiddled with the controls on the door, entering unlocking passwords and bypassing the codes that kept average soldiers out of the top secret hangar. 

"What the- how did they find us?" Harlow asked, her voice flooded with panic. 

"Quinn!" Chyra shouted. She wheeled Grey back around to face the smaller green wolf. Chyra suppressed the furious fervor that had instilled itself in Grey's mind and listened to the Galra cadet's rapid muttering as he shut down the programming keeping the bay doors closed. 

The banging on the door intensified. 

"Quinn! Hurry your ass up!" Corinth griped, the yellow wolf shifting from foot to foot nervously. 

"I can't work when you're distracting me! Now just let me- okay!" Quinn snapped. The doors to the hangar flew open. 

All the doors. 

The airlock opened at the same time as the door that the guards had gotten to, creating a vacuum into open space. A big portion of the robotic sentries and Galra soldiers were swept up in the rush of air leading out into the void of space. The wolves didn't move much, they were too large and heavy to be swept up easily by the tidal wave of oxygen as it flew out of the hangar. 

Chyra shouted to the others over the com, "Quick! Get out of here! I'll be right behind you, just go!"

The other four wolves and their pilots bounded forward towards the open door that lead into the vast abyss of space. The smallest green and red wolves leapt out first, followed by the larger blue and yellow, and then finally, Chyra leapt out the opening behind them in her massive grey wolf. 

Freedom. Grey threw her head back to howl triumphantly to the void, surrounded by stars and silhouetted against the purple Galra mothership. A feeling of elation swelled in Chyra's chest, fueled by the rush of happiness coming from Grey's consciousness as it pressed against her own.

They were free. 

Well, almost free. 

A blast from a laser canon flew mere inches from Grey's ear, and Chyra wheeled the wolf around to face the source of the fire, and saw an entire battalion of automated drones flying towards her at breakneck speed. Several battleships were coming near as well, and Chyra's breath caught in her throat before Grey gave her a surge of confidence.

"Uh, guys... what do we do? If they catch us, we'll be kicked out of the academy for sure!" Harlow shrieked, her voice shrill from panic.

"That's what you're worried about?" Corinth protested. "They'll kill us if they catch us!" Her usually strong voice shook slightly with fear.

Chyra took a soothing breath. "We're going to be fine, you guys. Just stick by me, and fight as hard as you can. Remember your training, and don't back down!"

Her friends took up positions on either side of her, and Chyra tightened her grip on the controls, preparing for the fight of her life.


	2. Enhancement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chyra gets her ass kicked, loses her footing, and manages to make a new friend.

Chyra swung Grey around to face the oncoming Galra troops, snarling to herself as she saw the vast amount of ships they would have to fight off to make their escape. Squads upon squads of battle drones and fighter ships surged towards the five wolves and their distressed pilots, laser blasts flying towards them and skimming the metal skins of the wolf mechs. 

Grey bared her teeth, and a feeling of determined confidence emanated from the wolf's consciousness as it pressed against Chyra's own. Chyra felt several complex emotions from Grey, and had to struggle to decipher them through the newfound connection that she shared with the robotic canine. Chyra eventually got the gist, and received the message that Grey was trying to wordlessly transmit via mental link: stay away from the left side of the battleships, that's where most of their heavy artillery is. And destroy as many drones as you can in the retreat, but get out of the danger zone as fast as possible. This wasn't a battle she could win, just one where she could survive to fight another day. 

Okay. She could to this. 

Chyra relayed Grey's advice to her team, and they voiced their agreement. The assassin toggled a few switches in the cockpit experimentally, and found that pressing a button on her right control joystick would fire lasers from the wolf's jaws to destroy enemy ships. Quinn told everyone that hitting a switch on the left side of the dashboard made their wolves' tails crackle and spark with energy, which they could use to destroy smaller drones and damage the larger ship's power grids. 

Chyra's heart started to pound wildly with adrenaline. Her hands clenched the joysticks that controlled the massive wolf mech, and beads of sweat started to gather on her neck and forehead. 

The wolves leapt into action. 

A blast from a plasma cannon mounted on the side of a battleship fired at Vrill, and his red wolf shot upwards and away from the danger. Corinth flew forward and bashed into the hull of a small fighter, crushing the entire front with her heavily armored wolf. The damaged ship spun out and hit several more, tearing off wings and weapons from other ships. Harlow went in behind her and started shooting lasers at the damaged fighters, blasting them apart before they could reorient themselves. 

"Alright!" Corinth cheered over the com. She had managed to take out an entire battleship by shooting its fuel tanks just as it ignited its boosters. 

"Nice shot!" Harlow agreed. 

Vrill was seemingly everywhere, dashing from place to place at blinding speeds and dispatching enemies without mercy. Quinn was hot on his tail, although the green wolf was having some small degree of trouble keeping up with the faster and more agile red wolf, and instead settled on damaging the largest amount of ships that he could, finishing off the fighter drones and jets that Vrill damaged but didn't destroy. 

Chyra bared her sharp incisors in a manic grin before sending Grey into a frenzy, swooping among the ranks of fighters and destroying as many as she could. The grey wolf's metal claws and massive jaws tore at the drones and fighters, wrecking their engines and setting their fuel tanks ablaze. They exploded in short bursts of light before the lack of oxygen in the void of space suppressed the flames. The fury and thrill emanating from Grey's mind was all-consuming, and Chyra's emotions were caught up in the rush of Grey's excitement.

They fought for what seemed like hours. It was only one. An hour of defensive formations and destruction and battle, and the five pilots still hadn't been able to shake the Galra fleet. 

They were starting to tire.

Their attacks got sloppy. Their reaction times got slow. Defensive movements didn't quite do the job. The wolves started to take damage from the endless attacks of the Galra fleet. It didn't help that the only battle strategies that they knew had been taught to them by the Galra during their training, and their now-enemies could clearly see what they were doing and knew exactly how to stop them. 

Grey's enthusiasm had died down too. Her attacks held less fury after several minutes of battle, and her mind had stopped fueling Chyra and imbuing her with the confidence she needed to keep going with all the ferocity she had had before. 

They were starting to slip up.

A missed shot here, a wrong move there, a couple of mistimed dodges there, all of it added up. The team wasn't doing too hot. 

"Okay, everyone," Chyra panted. "What do you say we get out of here before we end up space junk?"

The others murmured agreements. 

"About time."

"Thought you'd never ask."

"Why are we still even here?"

Chyra realized with a jolt that she had somehow taken on the mantle of leader for the team, and the other four expected her to give the commands. Chyra took a calming breath, and smiled as a feeling of reassurance brushed against her from Grey. 

"Okay then, give me a minute to figure out a way out of here. I'm open to suggestions." Chyra scanned the area around her, looking for a means of escape. A grin slid onto her face when she saw it. It was the perfect way to lose the fleet.

"We're going to get out of this, go hard and go fast, and then lose them in that asteroid belt on the left."

The other pilots voiced their objections on the matter rather too loudly, in Chyra's opinion. 

Quinn's high pitched and frantic voice was one of the only things Chyra could hear; he must have been yelling right into the communicator. "We can't fly through an asteroid belt! I know these wolves are fast, but they're not that fast! We'll be crushed to bits!"

Chyra huffed. "Well, it's either go through there or let these soldiers take us. Don't worry, I'll give you a tour of the gladiator arena!"

"I don't like it... but it's our best shot." Agreed Vrill. 

"Smaller wolves first, then the larger two. I'll cover you all from behind." Chyra commanded. Vrill and Quinn shot off, weaving through the asteroid belt with unimaginable ease. The bodies of the wolves twisted gracefully between asteroids, like dancers flying through the air around props on a stage. Chyra almost envied their speed and grace. 

The blue and yellow wolves weren't as graceful, but they still made it through the asteroid belt unscathed. They had to push a few of the large rocks around because their slightly bulkier wolves couldn't squeeze through the tiny spaces that the others could, which sent entire sections of the belt into motion. Space rocks crashed into one another, making the entire belt an obstacle course worthy of the status of 'impossible'. Chyra's breath hitched as she saw what awaited her. 

Asteroids flew left and right, crashing into one another and breaking off into smaller pieces that spun wildly through the maze of floating stones. There was no way to get through unscathed. Chyra's hands tightened on the controls. She started to shake.

She couldn't do this. 

She may have been a capable pilot, but she wasn't counting on the fact that she would be dodging massive moving targets that could damage her spacecraft beyond repair if she didn't dodge every single one. 

Grey's consciousness pressed comfortingly against Chyra's, giving her reassurance. Confidence surged from Grey into Chyra through their bond, steadying the Galra's hands on the controls. Grey's consciousness urged Chyra to close her eyes. 

The assassin took a breath to steady her nerves, and let Grey take control. Her eyes glowed bright blue for a moment before her eyelids slid closed and concealed the light. Grey's mind melded with Chyra's, and the two entities became one for just a moment. Chyra could see what was around her, even though her eyes were closed tightly against the outside world. She was seeing through Grey's eyes. 

The wolf leapt forwards. 

She twisted and slipped through gaps between space rocks that Chyra thought would be impossible for the wolf mech to fit through. She was as graceful and swift as the smaller wolves, weaving effortlessly through the asteroid belt as if she was much smaller and faster than she was. 

And then she hit a rock. 

Or really, a rock hit her. It came flying towards her from when a fighter pilot went kamikaze in an effort to stop the grey wolf from escaping. It smashed into a large asteroid, sending it careening wildly towards Chyra and Grey. The Galra assassin's eyes shot open, their blue glow fading as an explosive pain blossomed in her shoulder, in the same place that the boulder hit Grey. 

And suddenly, there was pain. 

Immense, horrible, blinding pain . 

It wouldn't stop. 

It was too much. 

The pair's mental link connected them in mind and spirit, and through their bond, Chyra could feel the agony that exploded in Grey's shoulder as the asteroid slammed into her right side, sending the metal wolf and her pilot reeling into space, out of the asteroid belt and back towards the Galra fleet. 

A white hot pain exploded in her back. Her ribs felt like they were replaced with molten steel. She couldn't help it. She screamed until she was hoarse, her throat giving out because of the abuse. She couldn't get breaths into her lungs. There was warm red liquid dripping down her forehead and into her eyes, and Chyra realized that she had hit her head on the dashboard. Bright spots of vibrant colors flitted across her vision, swimming on the surface of the barrier between unconsciousness and reality. 

Chyra felt like she was dying. 

The world swam in and out of focus, and pain-thriving tears further blurred Chyra's vision. Voices crackled over the communication links, but the ringing in Chyra's ears blocked it out, overpowering the voices of Chyra's family with its incessant screeching. Red light flooded the cabin, and Chyra could feel Grey's consciousness latching onto hers as the wolf struggled to regain her sense of balance. Disjointed thoughts ran rampant through Chyra's mind, none of them decipherable enough to make much sense. Purple light surrounded them. They were being pulled towards the ship. They were in a tractor beam. 

They weren't going to make it. 

Grey thrashed around, trying to break free of the beam that was pulling her towards Zarkon's ship, but she was weakened by the blow to her shoulder. She couldn't break free. 

Chyra blinked and tried to get the world around her to get back into focus. The ringing in her ears died down enough that she could catch snippets of her friends' conversation. They wanted to help her, but they couldn't get through the asteroid belt. 

Chyra wanted it all to stop. 

They were arguing, yelling at each other and Chyra about how much they wanted to help her. 

Vrill thought he could go get her. He couldn't. He would be destroyed in the maze of moving asteroids. 

She wanted them to stop. They had to get away from there, go somewhere safer so the empire wouldn't capture them.  

Chyra took a ragged breath between her teeth, hissing as she inhaled and the air rushed into her lungs. "Guys... get out of here. Get somewhere safe and forget about me." 

There were roars of outrage. 

Chyra didn't care. She needed them safe. She needed to know that they would be okay. They didn't need her; Vrill would be able to keep the four of them together. 

"Leave me here. What could they possibly do to me that isn't worse than what they already have?"

Corinth shouted angrily into the com. "Are you quiznaking insane? We're not leaving you here, so shut up and help us figure this out!" Chyra could hear slamming and growling from Corinth's line, she wasn't too happy with Chyra's suggestion. 

They were getting closer and closer to the Galra mothership with each second. Each heavy breath that she forced into her battered lungs brought her closer to her inevitable end. She knew it was too much to hope that Zarkon would make it quick. 

A bitter smile lifted the corners of Chyra's lips. She didn't make it through, but the Galra fleet couldn't get through the ever changing asteroid belt without sustaining major damage, and going around it would cost them hours of time, time during which the others could escape and be halfway to the next star system. 

Chyra had tasted freedom for maybe an hour, but in return, the rest of her family would have freedom forever. She figured it was worth it. 

As the tractor beam pulled Chyra and Grey back to their personal hell, Chyra gave one last sorrowful look back at her family, who were pacing and leaping at the shifting wall of asteroids in desperate attempts to get to her. 

"Take care of each other," she told them, "look after them, Vrill. I love you guys."

The incessant pain in Chyra's head overcame her, and the assassin slipped into oblivion as Grey landed limply inside the hangar of the massive Galra ship. 

And then the door closed. 

. . .

Blackness surrounded her, and Chyra floated in a vast black void. Her limbs were extended, seemingly held out by some unknown force. She was suspended in the blackness, floating in the murk like she would on the surface of a still black lake. 

She couldn't see. The darkness was complete, absolute. Her head felt like it had an asteroid banging around inside of it, and her thoughts were muddled, as if the asteroid had knocked her brain loose as it shoved its way into her cranium. She could sense her limbs, outstretched and unmoving, and smell the strangely pungent and unpleasant smelling air and the thin, scratchy clothes that clung to her body. She could feel blood from when she cut her forehead on the dashboard of her wolf caked across her forehead and congealed in her hair. She couldn't see any of it. But she could feel the cold shadows enveloping her, caressing her in their soft folds. 

She felt like there was something missing, a little piece of her mind that was gone. 

Where was Grey?

The wolf's consciousness no longer brushed comfortably against her own, and Chyra felt strangely alone; more alone than she'd ever felt before. 

Maybe she was dead, or close to it. Maybe the cold feeling, that aching numbness in her fingers and toes was death, reaching out and pulling her into oblivion with cold skeletal hands. Maybe that's why she couldn't feel Grey's presence in her mind. Yeah, maybe she was dead. That would be better than facing whatever Zarkon had planned for her. She had probably already been branded a traitor or a deserter, and she had most likely been executed by now. Maybe this was death. Maybe the afterlife was an eternity of quiet contemplation, or a time to go over all of your memories and thoughts and regrets until you finally faded from existence. 

And then pain exploded in her legs, and Chyra knew she wasn't getting off that easily.

Comparing it to the pain she felt when the asteroid hit her wolf wouldn't be doing this agony any justice. The other pain was excruciating, this one was too much for words. It made the other pain feel like tickles.

Her entire lower body felt like is was being torn apart piece by piece, savagely ripped off of the rest of her as Chyra lay suspended helplessly in the blackness. It was as if every one of her nerve endings was being prodded with a white hot needle, setting her entire lower body alight with searing pains. The muscles in her arms spasmed, but there was a pressure around her wrists that kept Chyra from moving her arms. Her back arched in agony, and Chyra finally felt something beneath her. A hard, flat, cold metal surface dug into her shoulder blades as she thrashed wildly and tried to escape the blinding agony she was in. A soundless scream tore from her lips, ripping its way out of her throat and past her lips as she screamed silently into the void. 

She didn't know what was happening; she couldn't see. The blackness was only and thick, absolute and no longer comforting. Chyra wanted out of it. She wanted to be able to see what was causing this awful, blinding, paralyzing pain. She couldn't see. 

Maybe this was hell, punishing her for all the lives she had taken; paying her back for all the atrocities she had committed. 

The pain died down after what seemed like hours of agony, but a dull throbbing remained. 

Blurry, indistinct shapes flickered into existence around her, the dim light was the same garish purple color as the interiors of the entire fleet of Galra ships. Chyra couldn't get the world around her to swim into focus. She blinked and shook her head, but no distinct images appeared. Everything was still made of fuzzy blobs of purplish color. 

Chyra hated purple. 

Okay, that was a little too broad. Chyra didn't hate all shades of purple, she liked the shade of violet that lit up the screens in Grey's cockpit. She liked the bluish lavender color of Corinth's fur, and she liked the almost-pink-but-still-purple color of Vrill's hair. Hell, her skin was a light shade of lavender, although it leaned more towards grey, which was unusual, and she thought that the pale purple color was nice. No, she didn't hate all purple; she hated that gross, overbearing plum purple that was the color of Galra- modified quintessence. It was everywhere. All her life, Chyra had lived in the mothership, only leaving the spacecraft when Zarkon sent her on assignments to kill a noble or rebellion general, either to keep the empire in a stagnant state or make a statement. 

So she had seen a lot of that purple.

For her, that disgusting shade of mauve meant captivity, that she belonged to someone else and wasn't her own person as long as Zarkon still commanded her. That purple meant that she was trapped, and at the mercy of the tyrant that controlled the vast majority of the known universe.

Fortunately, the indistinct purple blobs had cleared and solidified. Unfortunately, they turned into two Galra soldiers and the Witch Haggar, standing over her as her heavy breathing subsided and her sweat-drenched body quivered in exhaustion. The dull throbbing in her thighs hadn't gone away, but Chyra's head was strapped down to the table and she couldn't see past her chest to see her legs, which were tied down against the table just like her wrists were. 

Monitors and screens surrounded her, along with jars of quintessence and robotic pieces littering several tables off to one side. To her horror, Chyra saw splatters of blood across parts of the walls and floor, and judging by their dark red color and wet sheen, they were fairly fresh.

Chyra sucked a breath in between her clenched teeth, and have Haggar a snarky smile. She coughed roughly, "Haggar! How nice to see you." Chyra winced at how horrible her voice sounded. She must have screamed until her lungs gave out. 

The witch scowled, her yellow eyes glinting from beneath the hood she wore. She clenched her fists and a jolt passed through Chyra's body, stiffening her spine and seemingly clenching every muscle in the assassin's body as a shot of electricity arced through her. Haggar released the magic after a moment, and Chyra went limp, breathing heavily. 

Chyra suddenly felt a newfound hatred of magic. 

"Do not speak to me, you traitorous filth!" The white haired sorceress spat. 

"Oh and it's back to the old insults, I see." Chyra remarked, annoyance surging through her at the Witch's temper. She had never liked Haggar, mainly because the leader of the druids held nothing but contempt for the assassin in her shriveled little heart. She had never said an encouraging or even remotely kind word to Chyra, and the assassin had returned the favor, always scowling angrily back at the witch whenever they encountered each other. 

"Your rude comments are not needed." Haggar growled, turning on her heel so that her back was facing Chyra. She addressed the guards, "You two, bring this traitor to cell block four. Keep your communicators on you; Emperor Zarkon will be expecting you to bring her to him later." 

With that, the Druid stalked out the door, her robe billowing behind her. 

Chyra scoffed and rolled her eyes. "What did I ever do to her?" She asked the guards jokingly. 

They didn't reply, but instead began to unbuckle her from the table and cuff her limbs together. They removed the strap from her forehead first, allowing Chyra to roll out the cramps in her neck. Then they moved on to her hands, unstrapping one and cuffing the other to it before unleashing her other hand. Chyra sat up as they were unbuckling her legs. 

She looked down at her feet, and immediately froze from pure shock. 

What- what the fuck did they do?

Chyra froze, staring in wide eyed shock at the... apparatuses they had stuck onto her legs. They weren't real. They had to be fake. She couldn't be like the others, those poor souls that had lost limbs in the gladiator arena and had them replaced by robotic prosthetics.

Furious tears sprung into her eyes. How dare they? How fucking dare they?! 

Her throat tightened. She couldn't breathe. Chyra struggled for every breath, her chest heaving as she stared in horror at what those sick bastards had done to her. They had taken her legs, her perfectly functional, working legs, and replaced them with bionic metal machines that glowed a dark silver in the dim lighting. 

They were... hard to describe. They were a silver color similar to the coloration of Chyra's skin, with plates of malleable black metal on her joints, such as her knees and ankles. They   
didn't feel odd besides the dull throbbing that had been present for a long while, and if Chyra hadn't seen them, she wouldn't have known that her legs had been replaced at all. Veins of quintessence wormed their way through the mechanical legs, shining that gross plum purple from in between the plates that covered the rest of the machinery. 

That color... it meant that she was theirs.

By the time Chyra had regained some sense of clarity, the two guards had unstrapped her metal ankles from the table, and had moved to position themselves behind her, one hand on each of her shoulders, and the other on their blasters. They tried to get her to move off of the operating table, but Chyra was frozen, dimly aware of what was happening but too shocked to react.

She heard one of the guards growl angrily, and then felt a sharp stab of pain as the butt of a gun smashed into the back of her head, making the world go black around her. 

. . . 

Chyra woke up much faster this time.

She was being dragged by her arms down a dank and gloomy hallway, with her hands bound and her body dragging behind one of the guards that had been in the operation room with her. Her metal legs dragged against the ground, making a slight screech of metal on metal when they hit the floor just right. She saw that her normal clothes had been replaced with prisoner's rags, and that she was being dragged through the halls of a cell block, with small jail cells containing prisoners from all planets and galaxies on each side of the hall. They all stared at her with emaciated faces and dark eyes as she passed, bony hands clutching the bars of their pitifully small cells. 

The guards stopped outside a dirty cell that was behind firmly locked doors, which needed a sentry's hand scanned or a guards personal passcode to open. The guards entered said password and the doors swung open. 

Chyra was roughly tossed into the cell, the guard literally throwing her in and letting her roll to a stop at the opposite wall. As they swung the door closed, Chyra started shrieking, spewing profanities at the heathens as they retreated. 

"Get back in here, you bastards! Come back and fight me like real men! I'll kill you both with my hands tied behind my back!"she shrieked. And she wasn't bluffing. She knew she could kill them, especially with robotically enhanced legs. They didn't return to answer her taunts, but Chyra heard a hushed voice emanating from a small gap in the wall separating her cell from the one on the left. 

"You don't want to do that," they rasped, voice scratchy from apparent lack of water, "they'll beat you or make you fight."

"Yeah, well. They'll make me fight anyway, no matter what happens." Chyra said, sitting up and running her bound hands through her matted hair, trying to get the flakes of dried blood out of the ratty mass of purple. Her legs remained bent in the same position they were in when she landed, and as she struggled to make them cooperate in time to her brain, the other person on the other side of the wall spoke. 

"Hey, come over here for a second."

Chyra growled in frustration; her new legs had only given a couple of feeble twitches when she had tried to make them move. "Easier said than done." She griped.

"Try pushing the little metal plate on the back of your neck." They advised. 

Chyra was slightly taken aback, but she slowly reached up to touch the back of her neck, and her fingers brushed against a small metal disk with smooth edges and a circular shape. It was stuck firmly at the back of her head, right where her neck met her skull. The skin around it was puckered and irritated, and it hurt to press against the metal disk. 

She pressed lightly on it, it made a quiet clicking sound, and her legs gave a slight shudder before Chyra pulled them up underneath her to sit more comfortably on the cold metal floor. 

She heard the person on the other side of the wall huff in frustration. "Oh for Chethsyris' sake! Get over here, Galra!" 

Chyra didn't have any inkling of an idea who Chethsyris was, but she complied, clumsily scooting over to the left wall, where the voice was coming from. 

Apparently, the builders of her cell either weren't paying attention while they were making it, or the part didn't match up and meet the right size, leaving a probably four or five inch gap between the back and left walls of her cell. Through the gap, Chyra could see an electric blue eye with a slit pupil peering through at her, attached to a sharply angled head and a very long and thin neck. The figure's shoulders were narrow and hunched, and they were so thin that it looked like they could probably fit through the bars of the cell if they really tried. From the waist up, they looked a bit like a Galra, except with scaly brown skin instead of purple skin or fur. From the waist down, they had the scaly tail of a serpent, with dark brown scales running up and down their back and lighter browns trailing up their underbelly. The rest of their body was obscured by the solid metal wall. 

"How do you fare? Are you badly injured?" The snake-person asked worriedly. Their blue eyes scanned her body for injuries and wounds, but found nothing except a few bruises and minor scrapes. 

"I'm... alive." Chyra answered, unsure. She wasn't okay, that was for sure. In a matter of moments, her entire world had been ripped away from her. She had gone from being Zarkon's favorite personal assassin to a criminal, and she had lost the only four people she had ever cared about. 

Not to mention she had found a giant metal wolf, somehow mysteriously bonded with it, and flown inside the damn thing before getting caught and pulled back into her personal hellhole. 

So yeah. She was alive. 

"That does not give me much information to go on." The snakelike prisoner snorted. 

Chyra's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as her usually short patience ran thin. "Why do you care so much?" She questioned. 

"Because I have been alone in this cell for a long time, and I would like to ensure that my only company does not die within minutes of their arrival." 

Okay, so snake guy was genuinely worried about her. 

At least, she assumed that they were a male, as their voice was fairly deep and they seemed to lack any sort of curvature in their chest and body. She didn't exactly have a frame of reference to base her assumption off of though, so Chyra decided to refer to them as a he in her mind until further notice. 

"Might I ask your name?" He asked, gesturing with a thin hand at her through the gap in the wall. 

Chyra paused slightly before telling him, "I'm Chyra. You?"

"My people called me Tsaeci." He said, placing his clawed hand on his chest, which was covered by the thin purple garment that all Galra prisoners wore. 

Chyra tongue grappled with the sounds of his name, unable to make a perfect recreation of the weird hissing sounds he made when introducing himself. She managed to come pretty close, though. 

"Skay-skee?"

He bared his teeth, a slight hiss sounding from his throat, and Chyra was afraid that she had offended him in some way. But he shook his head slightly, and Chyra realized that he was laughing. 

"It's more like Say-see." He corrected. Chyra scrunched her face up in concentration and tried again, and this time he nodded. 

"That is better, Kai-ra." He sounded a bit awkward with the name, but Tsaeci was very close, much closer than Chyra had been when trying to pronounce his name. 

"Thanks... for worrying about me." The Galra said quietly. 

He nodded and leaned against the back wall of his cell, and Chyra soon followed suit. She pulled her left leg up to her body and ran her fingers along her calf, the dark metal warm against her fingertips. Her hands shook, and she heard a sympathetic hiss from Tsaeci on the other side of the wall. 

"These Galra are cruel, making us fight and hurt and lose limbs for their entertainment. I am sorry that they did this to you." 

"I don't know why though. My legs still worked, and I'm a capable fighter without mechanized legs." Chyra muttered, angry tears starting to prick at her eyes. "Why the hell would they do this?" 

Tsaeci merely shrugged, and replied, "they're cruel." As if that solved the matter.

They fell into a sullen silence, both prisoners lapsing into a period of quiet contemplation that lasted for hours. 

The silence was shattered when the door swung open and two guards marched into Chyra's cell.

Chyra scrambled to her metal feet, standing shakily on her own for the first time since her legs had been replaced. She bared her teeth at the two guards, one of which was a woman this time, growling slightly as her legs shook beneath her.

The female guard shouldered her gun and placed one hand on her hip. She spoke in a chilling voice, one that sent a shiver down Chyra's spine almost as much as the words she spoke did. 

"Lord Zarkon wishes to speak with you."


	3. Battlefield

Chyra grunted as she was thrust onto her knees, the force of her metal kneecaps hitting the ground making a loud clanging noise and sending a shockwave up her thighs. She hissed between her teeth as the guards clamped their gloved hands harder on her shoulders, pinching her clavicles harshly.

"You will bow when approaching the emperor!" The female guard snapped in Chyra's ear, and the assassin had to resist the urge to bash her forehead right into the Galra woman's face.

Zarkon's booming voice nearly shook the entire room, there was no way it wasn't somehow magnified. No actual living thing could possibly talk that loudly. "That is enough, lieutenant. My advisor and I wish to speak with the prisoner alone. You are dismissed." The hair on the back of Chyra's neck stood on end, and her oddly colored eyes flashed with fear. She looked up at the emperor through her eyelashes and saw Haggar standing off to one side of the throne.

Emperor Zarkon was absolutely terrifying. His presence demanded respect and fear from anyone that saw him, and his terrifying appearance was only exemplified by the spiky armor he wore and the massive scar running down the left side of his face.

Chyra stood as the guards bowed and backed away, murmuring "Vrepit sa" as they retreated.

The door closed and Chyra opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off by Haggar barking "quiet!" in a raspy voice.

Chyra shut up, and Zarkon began to speak.

"Chyra, you were my personal assassin. I treated you better than any of my other servants or soldiers or generals. You were given treatments and privileges that very few others under my command possess. I raised you and trained you alongside my finest and most esteemed generals; and so you must understand why I feel personally insulted by your betrayal."

He was bluffing, Chyra knew it. Zarkon never could summon any emotion, and this time was no different. He was trying to guilt trip her, and make her feel bad for finding Grey. She wouldn't. Her curiosity was nothing to be ashamed of.

"Am I to take your silence for agreement?" The Emperor asked, his deep voice resonating around the command chamber.

Chyra swallowed her pride and nodded mutely.

"Very well." He said. "It is quite unfortunate that I have lost my best assassin, but a loyal assassin with lesser skills to yours would be better than a highly skilled assassin that would readily betray the empire for the sake of a joyride in a priceless spacecraft."

Yeah, that stung. The emperor telling her that she could be easily replaced was very degrading, and it knocked her ego down a few pegs knowing that she was basically a renewable resource to him.

"It is also unfortunate that you turned out to be a traitor, as my mixed-blooded urchin of a son seems quite... smitten with you." Chyra had to forcefully remind herself to breathe.

It was a well known fact that Zarkon's son, Prince Lotor, was an illegitimate child, born while Zarkon still piloted the black lion as part of Voltron. Back when he actually had feelings, ten thousand years ago. He had never shown that he was displeased that Lotor had been born, however, so his scornful mention of his son had caught Chyra off guard.

The Emperor stood from his throne, stalking slowly towards Chyra as she stood frozen on the floor. "In fact, I was indeed hoping that you would make a suitable mother for an heir; an heir with noble lineage and two strong warriors as parents would be very helpful indeed in ensuring that my bloodline would remain on the throne for many ages to come."

Chyra couldn't believe what she was hearing. Emperor-fucking-Zarkon wanted her be the mother of the next heir to the empire, and the wife of his son. It was a huge honor, and most Galra women would kill to be chosen as Lotor's future bride, but all Chyra could feel was revulsion. Was that all anyone saw her as? A person to send when you wanted someone dead, or breeding stock? Not to mention, the prince was at the very least ten thousand years old. He had been a child during the fall of Altea. For ten thousand years, he had been sustaining himself with raw quintessence harvested from helpless planets, witnessing the killing of millions of sentient life forms in his father's quest for immortality. And he expected Chyra to just overlook the 'little' age gap between her and Lotor, just so Zarkon could keep his tyrannical dictatorship in place after he retired? What the actual hell?

Was she really that useless in everyone else's eyes?

No. Her family cared about her. They appreciated her and didn't care about her bloodline or status. They loved her for who she was, not what she could do or how she could serve them.

The menacing emperor was in front of her now, towering over her and making Chyra feel very small. His purple eyes glowed with quintessence, completely unreadable. "And yet, I can't help but think there may be something more to this." Chyra flinched violently as he leaned down to her level, grabbing her face with his gloved fingers and turning her head this way and that, studying her from every angle.

"Why is it that the loveliest ones always have the most fight in them? Although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, treachery must run in your bloodline" He spat. Chyra bit her tongue to keep from saying something he would make her regret. The emperor released her, striding back to his throne and leaving Chyra to quiver where he left her, standing all alone in the middle of the throne room.

He took a seat before continuing. "And so, Chyra," Zarkon continued. He seemed to revel in her horror at his announcement. That's when Chyra decided that Emperor Zarkon was one messed up quiznak. His resonant voice snapped Chyra out of her daze, "this is why you are here: you and your accomplices have betrayed the empire by stealing five invaluable spacecrafts from a restricted hangar, and destroying a large amount of ships and drones from our fleet. Undoubtably you were recruited by our enemies, the Blade of Marmora, to steal and deliver the spacecraft to them, and so, for the sake of our empire, I sentence you to death."

His words rang through Chyra's head like they were being drilled there by an excavator on a Balmera. She didn't say anything, because what was there to say?

Zarkon chuckled darkly. "What, no objections? One would think that the assassin that always had a smart remark dancing on her tongue would have more to say." Chyra did in fact have a sarcastic comeback ready and waiting, but she bit it back, trying not to make things worse for herself.

"My, that little enhancement must have made quite the impression on you, you've changed much in such a short time." Zarkon said, and anger broiled in the pit of Chyra's stomach, white hot and furious.

"You may be wondering exactly why I authorized the experiment that gave you new legs, Chyra. I'm sure you have questions." Zarkon prompted, waving a hand in Chyra's direction. She grit her teeth, holding back all the rude names and profanities that she wanted to spew at the emperor. Only one word escaped her lips.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you see fit to replace my legs when you were only going to sentence me to death? Why waste the time and resources to do this if I am only going to die anyway?" She asked, somehow managing to get the words out without her voice breaking or shouting and raging halfway through.

The emperor chuckled. "Because, assassin, there won't be an execution for you. You are going to be tried in the gladiator arena, and you will fight until your eventual and unavoidable demise. You may be skilled, but you will not be able to hold out forever. You will fall, and the empire will watch."

Chyra's breath hitched.

Haggar, who had been sitting idly in the shadows of the Emperor's throne, suddenly spoke. "In fact, your majesty, I do believe she must be going now." A sneer played on the druid's face, revealing sharp, yellowed teeth beneath her thin lips.

"Indeed she must." Zarkon agreed. He pressed a button on the arm of his throne, and the doors to the command chamber opened. The two guards stepped through the doors, their weapons at the ready. They seemed almost disappointed when Chyra wordlessly allowed them to take her by the arms and start to muscle her out of the room. Haggar's beady eyes watched from beneath her hood as the guards dragged Chyra out of the control room.

The dark hallways were as gloomy as ever. The shadows that had granted Chyra solace the previous day now seemed to suck all the life and energy out of her as the guards dragged her down through the labyrinthine hallways. They moved so fast down halls and passages that Chyra wasn't familiar with, and she quickly lost her bearings in the massive ship.

But when they passed the cell block, Chyra knew she was in trouble.

Tsaeci had slithered up the the bars of the cell and gripped them tightly as Chyra and her escorts passed by, hissing angrily and lashing his tail. Chyra then saw how long the snakelike prisoner actually was, with a tall torso and a massive snake tail that curled in great, thick coils around the cell. It didn't seem to match his skinny torso, but at the same time, it made him look powerful, threatening. Chyra felt a surge of fear before she realized that he was worried about her.

"Kai-ra!" He called, baring fangs as long as Chyra's middle finger at the guards.

Chyra grunted at the Galra soldiers jostled her around. "Don't worry, Tsaeci. I'll see you later." She reassured the aggravated snake. One of the guards smashed the butt of their gun into her back just below her shoulder blades, and then had to catch her as Chyra stumbled from the force of the blow.

It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, traitor." She growled. They passed the cell block, and Tsaeci and Chyra's cells disappeared from view.

Damn, she would give anything to be going back to that cell right about now.

A dark, rocky tunnel came into view. Why the hell did this super advanced spaceship have corridors made of rock? Was it for dramatic effect? Because Chyra knew damn well that it wasn't for functionality. Stone and space didn't mix.

But it made the passageway a hell of a lot scarier.

Near the end of the tunnel, a light shone, and Chyra squinted to be able to see where she was going.

Oh quiznak.

The arena was huge. It was easily the size of a coliseum, with seats organized in concentric rings all the way up to the cavernous ceiling. There was probably enough room for an entire fleet of soldiers, their friends, and their entire extended families. Over three thousand seats surrounded the ring completely, allowing audiences a three hundred sixty degree view of the carnage that took place in the battleground.

Every seat was full.

The only places in the arena that weren't packed with spectators were the areas behind massive screens that showed closeups of the action that took place inside the arena. There were important officers and soldiers filling up every seat in the upper levels, with Zarkon and his court stationed in a private box at the very top of the seating areas, so that they could see the entirety of the arena from their high perch. The middle levels contained spectators, some of which looked excited to be present for the imminent bloodbath, while others looked like they were going to be sick, and had undoubtedly been forced or "strongly persuaded" to attend.

The lower seats were full of prisoners. This was the largest section of seating, fenced in and full of ragged, emaciated prisoners of all intergalactic species and races. Each and every one of them looked petrified, because they knew that they were likely to be picked as competitors for the next round. Guards were posted around the perimeter of the prisoner seating, all holding blasters and other various weapons that could kill any of the prisoners without a second glance.

Chyra suddenly felt very small.

Every eye was on her, and she knew that they expected her to die during this fight.

She wasn't going to let that happen.

She felt the guards fiddling with her handcuffs, and the pressure around her wrists disappeared before she was roughly shoved into the ring. A steel gate clattered down behind her, and she had the distinct feeling that gate wasn't supposed to ever raise up and let her through again.

She landed awkwardly on her feet in the arena, and took a moment to observe her surroundings. The entire cavernous room was cast in the same garish purple light that lit up the rest of the ship. Is cast a gross grayish color on the dirt floor of the ring, and the pillars and scraps of metal that jutted up from the ground at random intervals. They were there to make the fights more 'interesting', and to allow the competitors to maybe live a few minutes longer. A massive trap door took up the entire wall on the opposite end of the arena, and Chyra had the sinking feeling that her opponent would need that large of a door to enter the arena. 

A male voice suddenly boomed over the loudspeakers in the arena, and it was loud and animated, undoubtedly the voice of an excited Galra commander who simply couldn't wait for Chyra to be publicly dismembered.

"And now, for your entertainment, Zarkon's previously prized assassin, undefeated champion, newest competitor in our arena, and known traitor to the empire... Chyra!" He crowed. There was a roar from the audience, some cheering in excitement for Chyra's imminent death, and others booing and hissing at her for her betrayal. The prisoners were remarkably quiet, however, and most looked at her with sympathy or fear. She saw Tsaeci being dragged into the crowd among a tightly packed group of other prisoners, surrounded by guards as he lashed his tail and hissed angrily.

A furious fire lit in Chyra's stomach.

"And for her competitor; six time defending champion of the arena, some call him the biggest and baddest we've ever had, the beast who defeated our previous champion... Venkhar the Terror!"

The enormous door opened.

It was at that moment that Chyra realized that she didn't have a weapon.

And of course she realized this after the giant monster came barreling in.

A gigantic grey mass came stampeding into the arena like a herd of furious elephants. Chyra only saw a flash of teeth before she had to dive out of the way as a massive creature rushed past her, whipping her already tangled hair around her head with the wind it left in its wake.

She rolled to her feet, using her momentum from the jump to push herself up to her metallic toes. She bounced on the balls of her feet, turning to see the massive monster as it shook its head from the impact with the wall of the arena. It looked like a rabid bear crossed with a hellhound and beaten to a frenzy. It was massive and grey, frothing at the mouth beneath its blunt snout and displaying yellow teeth the size of Chyra's upper arm. Massive claws attached to massive paws attached to immensely muscled front legs. Between the beast's shoulders was a barrel chest, huge and covered in a thick layer of matted grayish fur. It's neck was short and thick, and its head was blocky and tapered down to a blunt snout tipped with a massive black nose. Compared to its huge front end, the creature's back end looked comically small, and it looked like its short, stumpy back legs shouldn't be able to support its body.

Despite the monster's odd proportions, Chyra was terrified. Despite herself, her ears pinned against her head and her legs started to shake. The crowd roared, cheering on either her or the beast, Chyra couldn't tell. It all just muddled together into a wild cacophony of noise that did nothing but distract her from the task at hand.

Right now, she was just worried about surviving.

The monster- Venkhar, was it?- spun around after it had recovered from smashing into the wall, and it snarled at Chyra with blind rage in its eyes.

Holy hell... those eyes.

They were a disgusting orange color, and they smoldered like wildfire in the monster's skull. Chyra wanted to curl up and die under the gaze of those raging infernos, she wanted to wither and fall apart like a plant deprived of water.

The beast charged again, and Chyra realized she was already six feet under if she didn't get her head in the game.

The assassin waited until the last possible moment to dive out of the way again, repeating her previous strategy. Apparently the beast hadn't learned anything, and its forward momentum caused it to smash into one of the metal pillars, forcing the entire thing out of the ground and throwing it to the side, where it landed with an enormous crash.

The crowd went wild.

Venkhar snorted and shook his head again, rubbing at the sore spot on its head left by the impact. Chyra took the chance to duck behind one of the pillars and try to work up a strategy.

Okay. So she was alone in a gladiator ring with a five ton monster hellbent on killing her. Great. She was unarmed. Awesome. She was already tired and low on energy. Fantastic. Not to mention she had just had her legs chopped off.

Quiznak.

Hold on... her legs!

Chyra had seen some gladiators that could make their robotic limbs go into some sort of weaponized mode, where they glowed or shot sparks or even morphed into guns. If Chyra's legs were similarly weaponized, and she somehow managed to activate them, she might stand a chance.

Maybe.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a massive black snout poked around the corner.

Chyra shot out from behind the pillar like a plasma blast from a gun, dashing under the cover of another scrap of metal. She skid underneath the piece of jagged steel as she dodged a swipe from the monster's massive, clawed forepaw. She avoided being brutally crushed against the metal scrap by hair's breadth.

Chyra tried unsuccessfully to activate her mechanical legs, and make them do whatever the hell they were supposed to do. She wanted them to do something useful. Like heat up to a temperature able to melt steel or morph into machine guns, although that last one may cause more trouble than good. Walking on machine guns would take some getting used to.

The beast began tearing angrily at the metal sheet, which was fortunately buried deep in the ground of the arena. However, the small outcropping that Chyra had crammed herself into wasn't very stable, and as Venkhar raked his claws over the metal again and again, the sheet of steel shuddered and groaned under the massive amounts of weight and pressure.

The structure groaned, and Chyra made a move to leap out from under the sheet of collapsing metal. She lunged out just seconds before it came crashing down, stumbling towards another piece of cover for her to hide behind.

She didn't get that far.

The bearlike creature bellowed and swiped at Chyra from behind, his massive forepaw smashing into her back and sending her sprawling into the dust several yards away. The crowd made sympathetic noises as she tumbled to a stop at the base of another metal pillar.

She sucked in a breath and started to right herself, but Venkhar had other plans. He leapt across the arena towards Chyra, closing the distance between them in one giant bound. Before Chyra could move, he had her left leg in his mouth and had lifted her into the air, the assassin swinging wildly from his mouth like a rag doll.

Chyra writhed and thrashed in the monster's iron grip, trying to dislodge herself from his viseike jaws. It was a weird feeling, being in his mouth. Chyra felt the immense pressure on her mechanical leg, but it didn't exactly hurt. It was uncomfortable, yeah, and really strange, but Venkhar's teeth on her metal leg wasn't painful in the slightest. She kicked at his jaw with her free leg, but was forced to stop when her head almost slammed into a metal pillar as Venkhar swung her around like a dog would a squeaky toy. She heard the crowd laughing at her plight.

Okay, seriously? She was about to be viscously torn apart in front of thousands of people, and they were laughing?

Anger ignited in her chest, and Venkhar howled in agony, dropping Chyra just as the acrid scent of burning flesh filled her nostrils.

She hit the ground running, sending up puffs of dirt with her feet as she sprinted away from the furious beast. Chyra dove behind another pillar, and looked down.

Holy hell.

Her legs had lit up a bright angry purple, and Chyra could feel the heat pulsing through her as the liquid quintessence boiled in her veins. Although Venkhar had gripped her leg tightly enough to crack stone, her left leg was unharmed. Residue slobber from the monster's mouth sizzled out of existence on her left leg, boiling and evaporating on the extremely hot surface. She halfway wanted to touch it, but she was afraid that it would burn her if she ran her fingers along the glowing metal.

Not like she had time to investigate anyway.

Venkhar had recovered from Chyra burning him, saliva and blood dripping from his mouth in disgusting strands like cow cud. His mouth was bleeding and steaming from Chyra's accidental attack, and he panted heavily through his mutilated mouth. He roared angrily, the sound distorted by the gory scene in his jaws. Chyra scrambled away, before realizing that she had a leg up on the monster now. 

Or rather, two legs up.

She turned tail and started sprinting towards the monster, feeling the raw quintessence surging through her veins and making her faster and more powerful than ever before. She forgot that she was unarmed, she forgot that she was outmatched, and she forgot that she wasn't invincible.

She also forgot that she didn't know what she did to make her legs power up.

And so, by the time Chyra had reached the side of the arena where the monster was, her legs had deactivated and she was basically defenseless.

So when Venkhar lunged at her, Chyra jumped.

But she didn't hit the ground.

In later tellings of this story, Chyra would claim that she ran up the beast's spine, leaping from his back and striking a heroic superhero pose before flying off towards the top of the arena.

The truth involved much more screaming and crashing.

Chyra scrambled over Venkhar's head and shoulders, using the rough fur as handholds to pull herself upward and away from his crashing jaws. She leapt off of his back, absolutely expecting to crash face first into the ground.

She didn't expect vents on her legs to ignite and send her careening across the arena.

Rockets.

Her legs were equipped with rockets.

Chyra was sent screeching into the dirt on the opposite side of the arena, crashing into the ground and skidding away from her opponent, scratching up her arms and shoulders as she rolled to a stop across the ground. The small cuts and scrapes stung, but not as much as the crowd's laughter did.

She stood up and shook herself off, dusting the coarse dirt off of her arms with a scowl. The bearlike beast roared angrily, turning back to Chyra with a savage growl. Chyra growled back, baring her sharp canine teeth at Venkhar.

He charged once again, and this time Chyra was ready. She ran at him, heart pounding, eyes burning, and legs igniting. Venkhar lunged towards her, and Chyra dropped down onto her back, skidding across the gravel underneath the beast's belly. She thrust her left leg upwards, raking her glowing heel across the underside of Venkhar's stomach. Blood spattered across her front, hot and sticky and reeking, but Chyra didn't care.

She emerged behind the beast just as his front legs buckled and he crashed onto the ground with an agonized howl.

Chyra felt a pang of sympathy. Who knew where this creature came from, what he had done to get captured, and how many horrors he had gone through. They may have been fighting, but Chyra and Venkhar were in the same boat.

The sympathetic feeling vanished as a massive forepaw swung towards her. Chyra leapt upwards, using her boosters to fly above the blow that would have broken quite a few bones had it hit her. Chyra landed with a thud and dove to the side, dodging another blow. She backpedaled away from the beast as it's steps faltered, watching as the growling monster began to lose too much blood.

Chyra felt bad for not having a more humane way to end this than the way she was thinking of.

She took a running leap, flying upwards to come to a shaky landing on top of Venkhar's shoulders. She spun around as the bearlike monster threw his weight to on side in a vain attempt to dislodge her from her perch. Chyra plopped herself down on the back of his neck, grabbing onto his tiny, floppy ears and wrapping her legs around his neck to steady herself.

Then, with the utmost regret stabbing her chest, Chyra ignited her legs and tried to ignore the sound of sizzling flesh and ragged howls of agony.

Venkhar pitched to the left, staggering as Chyra's superheated legs tightened around his neck. The acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the air. The beast below Chyra reared up onto his tiny back legs, his massive fore paws clawing at the weaponized prosthetics wrapped tightly around his neck, choking the life out of him while the heat they emitted ate away at his flesh.

The wounded creature fell onto his front legs, and Chyra felt his legs buckle, sending the precious champion collapsing to the ground with an agonized wheeze.

Chyra leapt off of his shoulders before he rolled onto his side, the monster's eyes rolling back into his head as his body became deathly still. Chyra stumbled away, regret coursing through her. She tried to keep her gaze averted from the gory scene she had left in her wake.

The audience was dead silent with shock. Chyra stood, illuminated by the purple lighting, covered in blood and gore and dirt, her legs glowing a fierce purple in the semidarkness. She had won. The champion had fallen.

And then the crowd snapped out of it.

It was as if a wall of noise burst from the crowd, knocking Chyra back and making her stagger from the force of the sound. They were outraged, furious because they hadn't gotten the execution they had expected and been promised, and because their previous champion lay bleeding in the dirt of the kingdom he used to rule.

Over the roar of the crowd, the announcer's voice boomed, "Everyone remain in your seats. The traitor will fall..." the next part was muttered, "eventually."

The door that Venkhar emerged from opened again, this time spewing out seven gladiators armed with swords and guns into the arena. A team of slaves dragged Venkhar's motionless form out of the ring, leaving a trail of blood behind them, and the Galra gladiators turned to Chyra with sneers on their faces. She rose from her kneeling position on the ground, baring her teeth as the crowd screamed for her execution.

The combatants rushed forward, and Chyra legs ignited, propelling her forward into the fray.

This should be fun.


End file.
